


crumble like flaming leaves underfoot

by hyksieji



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, does anyone else think about if Neon meant what she said to chrollo? i do, neon nostrade stans/apologists get out of the woodwork i know you're in there somewhere
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27082486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyksieji/pseuds/hyksieji
Summary: She twists the pen between her fingers. Her skin itches, and try as she might to call upon hernen,Lovely Ghostwriter doesn't show up. From the corner of the room, one of her bodyguards—Kurapika, she thinks his name is—stares at her with pity and something a little too close to helplessness.She wonders why. It isn't his fault hernen'sdisappeared.(In defense of Neon Nostrade: she was only a child when she learned that the dead do not care about worldly possessions. And a child's biggest wish, after all, is to get the unconditional love of their caretaker.)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 22





	crumble like flaming leaves underfoot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **content warnings:** passive death wishes/ space related horror / child abuse

She wants it tooth-achingly sweet. Mama had clucked her tongue when she first spun around the living room with an imaginary prince, giggly with the laughter of those who have never undergone hardship.

Mama’s gone now. Papa didn’t say anything, but Neon Nostrade is a very smart girl. A week later, when Papa finally flies in and sees her hair cut to ribbons and dyed bright blue, he backhands her across the face hard. Called her insufferable and childish and _not fit to carry on the Nostrade legacy, what am I going to do now?_

He's throwing out Mama's possessions when her aunt races outside to stop him, and he looks her dead in the eye and tells her that Mama doesn't care. She's dead, after all. Aunt Venditti looks him straight in the eye and snarls out a curse in Italian. 

Light Nostrade has her promptly escorted out of the premises.

(That day, Neon learns that fate is a cruel mistress, and with a jaw set with determination, she swears upon her eternal, shining soul that she’ll be crueler. She also learns that the dead held no more say in the world than trash, and ties her mother's old scarf on the top of her head.)

She’s relocating (at least, that’s what Papa called it) to another mansion in the hills, when the sweet girl from the antique shop rings the doorbell. A Meteor City family, and therefore shunned by every person in the area with a lick of sense. Neon opens the door.

The girl offers her a kind smile, nerves evident in the edges. She holds out a pink cardboard bag, glittery tissue paper lining whatever contents it holds. She accepts it with a grin, and it isn’t even telegraphed. No one’s ever bought her gifts other than Mama, and her hands tremble with something she cannot name as the girl waves goodbye and shuts the door behind her.

There are baubles in the bag, shining teal and dull metal. They’re strangely shaped, almost reminiscent of tiny lightbulbs, and that makes Neon adore them all the more. The stone in the bottom feels too hard to be glass, and she imagines them as the most precious gems in the whole wide world, right there for her alone.

A note in the bag tells her that the girl had wanted her to wear them on her ears, but that she was free to do anything she wanted. 

She did try to attempt the style, she really did, but the adornments fell off every time she tried. So for the entirety of the afternoon, she took the time to see what worked on her, what would make her so very pretty for anyone who dared look at her.

When she arrives at the new manor, hair done up into an unnameable style, all Papa does is gape at her with dumb eyes, and she takes it as a victory.

The next girl who she talks to is the daughter of one of Papa’s business partners. She hasn’t been allowed to talk to anyone, due to some hot water her father had fallen into, and the hungry corners of her heart yearn for social interaction, even through the oppressive comfort that loneliness had brung. She won’t tell anyone, but she’s imagined how easy it would be to slip away into the forest and just die, keeling over and being left to rot. The idea doesn’t repulse her as much as it used to, because her dead body won’t have any complaints, right? She’s dead, after all, what worldly concepts does she still have to uphold?

The girl’s hair is long, blaid, and in butterfly locs, and the elegance she wears it with is at complete odds to her own mess. For a few seconds, hot shame wreaths her spine, before the girl looks at her with wide green eyes and tells her that her hair is the most gorgeous thing she’s ever laid eyes upon.

Maybe it’s a lie, then and there, but she can’t care to psychoanalyze it, because the girl asks if she can touch her hair and Neon agrees, anything to let soft fingers touch her.

The girl combs through it with too-gentle touches, and all Neon can remember is her mother, a smile of bronze and hair to match. She licks the salt from her lips, and chases away any remaining sadness perched in the corners of her mind. She doesn’t need to look to see that she’s crying.

Mama won’t mind if Neon isn’t sad. There’s no one to mourn over, after all, her real mother somewhere unbound by fate or tangible thought. Suddenly, she’s pulled back, her head in the girl’s lap.

“Why are you crying?” she asks, worry in her voice. “Did I pull too hard? You should’ve told me.” And Neon rests her hands over her eyes, peeking through the gaps to look at the girl’s face.

“You did nothing bad. I’m just— not doing very good today.” Dusky lips frown at her. 

“Listen, white girl.” She leans down until their foreheads touch. “I don’t know what you’ve been taught, but crying? It means that you’ve done great. That you’re allowing yourself to be sad.” She snorts at this, because what does she know, this girl who looks more regal than Neon’ll ever be?

“But the thing is, I have nothing to be sad about! Everything that’s ever happened to me is just fate.” The girl looks at her again, this time with pity. Before she can say anything, one of the manor maids come into the room to announce that their fathers are done with their meeting. Neon sees how the maid looks at their position, how she purses her lips to keep from breaking out into a smile.

Later, her father will ask her if anything important happened. A few minutes before that, the maid will tell her to keep what happened with the girl a secret from her father, and something about the tone of voice she uses makes Neon agree.

“Nothing at all, Papa.” She gives him her brightest, toothiest grin, knowing that he won’t be able to tell the difference between her crocodile teeth and her human ones.

Its a year later when she discovers nen. She’s been allowed to go into town recently, and the girl who works the second shift at the grocery store has become fast friends with her.

Its a few days after her making friends with the neighborhood that she sees another girl, fast and angry and pretty. And oh, its everything she’s ever wanted, when the girl asks her for a fortune, and Neon wants to impress her so very bad. 

She knows the girl isn’t expecting a real fortune, that the possibilities of that ever happening are less than zero, but she wishes and wishes and wishes, and all of a sudden the world goes fuzzy at the corners—

_Who are you Are you here to get me out How may I repay you GET OUT GET OUT YOU DO NOT BELONG HERE, STARCHILD, LEAVE AT ONCE._

She stretches her fingers out; if she could only lean in a little farther, she could grab the hearts of spirits, could smother worlds in darkness and change the entire narrative of the world, if only she could lean in a little farther if only she could

_GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT YOU ARE TOO YOUNG TO DIE THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO LOVE YOU DON’T DO THIS_

She’s always been cruel, hasn’t she? She wants and wants and wants, but why? To let go of fear? For revenge? To conquer death? To be loved?

_....YOU ALREADY KNOW, DON'T YOU._

Oh.

_YOU WANT TO BE A FIGUREHEAD? PLEASE CHILD, THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO DO THIS THERE ARE BETTER WAYS TO BE WANTED PLEASE PLEASE THINK ABOUT THE CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR ACTIONS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE_

Neon’s fingers touch the star, and it crumples to ash beneath her fingers. There is a pearl at the center of the ruin, opaque, iridescent, and altogether too beautiful to exist. Neon clutches it with shaking fingers, and the world changes, doubles in on itself and expands and contracts and glows—

—and suddenly she’s handing over a sheaf of papers to the girl, who looks at her with mild terror.

When did her body become this small? Everything looks like she’s viewing it out of the inner world of a chlorine pool, tinted blue and warped into tiny, formless photos.

News gets out around town. Some people start calling her the manor’s wicked witch; others call her a revelation from god. Her father looks at her with hungry eyes, and it’s the first time in so very long that she’s felt wanted by him.

From there on, she gets visitors every few weeks. All adults in fitted suits or silken dresses, and they ask Neon for fortunes. All of them bring gifts with them: furs from the now-extinct leopard-dog, scales from mermaids living in the lava pool of a dormant volcano (Neon isn’t really sure why the lava hadn’t hardened yet? Maybe it had and the mermaids could swim through solids? She isn’t going to ask), rubies from the tomb of some obscure conqueror, pickled eyeballs, and gold and silver galore.

Whenever she writes a fortune, she returns to space. At first it felt like desecration; a being like her was infinitely too small to attempt to comprehend the glory of the dimensions, she was far too little for secrets to be processed and stuffed within her body, but Lovely Ghostwriter gave her a kiss on the forehead and wrapped needle-thin arms around her.

_YOU ARE TOO SMALL AND BRIGHT TO PUNISH. I WILL PROTECT YOU I WILL KEEP YOU SAFE YOU DESERVE JUSTICE._

It sounded like her mother, and Neon Nostrade let herself cry in the arms of an eldritch entity.

When her father first suggests the idea of getting a bodyguard, all she can do is offer a slow blink. He’s just so animated, hands flailing around in righteous movements.

“They could take you everywhere, and you wouldn’t even have to sit around with Daddy at all of my meetings, they’d be able to keep you safe and buy those dresses—you like dresses, right—for you! It’s the perfect plan.”

“Okay daddy!” her fingers clench into fists, and she imagines him dead dead dead on the floor.

Why does she need bodyguards? She doesn’t have enough freedom as is, and the idea of someone watching her every move, regardless of intention— her hands tremble. But daddy dearest did get them for her, didn’t he? That must mean that he loves her, wants to keep her safe like a good father would do.

The first batch of bodyguards… are sufferable. Sweeter than she’d expected, and her favorite of the bunch had a booming laugh and sun-kissed skin.

He also got kicked out a few months into the job. 

“I won’t have one of your kind near my daughter,” the words are growled, and she has to peek through the doorway to see that her father has the guard up by the collar. “What if you taint her?”

He drops the guard to the ground.

“Don’t expect to be paid for your services. You may leave now, and do not think about coming back.”

Later, Neon will learn from a maid that the guard had been caught kissing another man in the town.

“Some bitter bitch must’ve snitched.” The maid snarls these words, hands wringing the washcloth in front of her. “If I only knew who it was— I’d ask them if it was worth it, outing that poor, poor man in front of the entire town.”

There is something sitting uncomfortably in Neon’s stomach, and it takes her a few minutes to place it as shame. Eyes wide, she tugs at the sleeve of the maid before asking, “why would Daddy do that? What did Mr. Guard do wrong?” 

The maid’s face drops.

Before she answers Neon’s question, she first explains two things: one, _the motherfuckers who built history to fit around their ideals are burning in hell,_ and two, _you’ll be too if you treat anyone the way your daddy did._

The maid—Priya, her name is—tells her what it means to like someone of your own gender, tells her what people might do you to and how it's wrong.

She’s never been particularly good at keeping secrets, but she clutches this one closer to her chest than she ever has before, clenches her fist around it and hopes it disintegrates between her fingers. Priya sees her crying on her four poster bed, and slips away to allow her privacy— Neon wants to call to her, wants to call her back and have her stroke through blue hair with warm hands and whisper comfort into her scalp. 

Lovely Ghostwriter attempts to help, but she pushes away it’s spindly hands. They are too inhuman to be comforting.

Her father is never going to love her now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *does a little boogie* lmao i don't have any witty commentary today it's a travesty WAIT ACTUALLY
> 
> to anyone who hates neon for collecting body parts but stans the phantom troupe.... sounding an awful lot like misogyny. just my hot (and coincidentally right) take

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading!! please feel free to leave comments/feedback they really help motivate me :heart:


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